


He Doesn't See It

by Cant_We_Just_Dance



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst, Barely any dialogue, M/M, Moving On, Poetic, Unrequited Love, fucking deal with it, lams???? who she, overly poetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:59:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cant_We_Just_Dance/pseuds/Cant_We_Just_Dance
Summary: John has to pretend that he doesn’t see it.He forces himself to turn his head, shift his gaze aside, bite his lip, hold back every last bit of stray thought that reaches out for Alexander through his curls. Hear no evil -but his voice is in the breeze- see no evil -every time he closes his eyes- speak no evil -none to him. Not to Alexander. The man whose ideas were as brilliant as sunlight streaming through open windows and who possessed words that could wrap themselves around one’s lungs. So tight, too tight, make it stop make it stop make it- make it something else.Make it something that it isn’t.





	He Doesn't See It

John has to pretend that he doesn’t see it.

He forces himself to turn his head, shift his gaze aside, bite his lip, hold back every last bit of stray thought that reaches out for Alexander through his curls. Hear no evil -but his voice is in the breeze- see no evil -every time he closes his eyes- speak no evil -none to him. Not to Alexander. The man whose ideas were as brilliant as sunlight streaming through open windows and who possessed words that could wrap themselves around one’s lungs. So tight, too tight, make it stop make it stop make it- make it something else.

Make it something that it isn’t. 

Take the world and blend yourself into the blue of the oceans, into each yellow blade of beach-grass and sharpen your mind with sea glass until blood drips from your fingertips onto solid earth beneath your feet. The leaves crunch beneath one’s feet, and his eyes follow the sounds, almost flinching at each sharp sound. But he can’t look up- he wouldn’t dare do such a thing. If he were to look up, his eyes would meet Alexander’s, and the butterflies would flutter in the breeze that carried a voice not soft or harsh or kind or cruel. Something so amazingly, distinctly Alexander, the man with strands of too-loosely-tucked-in hair that either flew behind him or into his face. 

Whatever Alexander asked- whether it be John’s opinion on something, his preference, his idea, or his response, the man couldn’t seem to let go of his bit of wind. Wind, however, quite simply refuses to be held down, pinned down and spread out with peppered-fallen-leaf-kisses until no one could convince either of them that the world was not as they saw it. Alexander could never live like that. So instead, he stepped on the few stones emerging from a small stream, hopping over the deep pull of the current, a small, unrehearsed dance that he knew all too well. John could never keep up, in such a contortion of his body. He would always step wrong, his arms would be too close to his body to balance him, the solidness beneath his feet was too slippery, and each time he fell. 

He’d already fallen, anyways. Falling is so easy. Why is it so easy? Why can’t falling be like climbing out of the grave one has dug himself? Dirt cakes beneath his fingernails, dark against the bright green that Alexander had insisted on painting onto them, and soil falls down around him every time he gets a solid grip. He finds himself lacking the ability to close his eyes to block out stinging pain- otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to find someone new, someone to pull him out and into their own sort of dance. But every time he keeps his eyes open, he sees Alexander. Closing them yields similar results. If falling had been this difficult, he was sure, he wouldn’t have leaped down into the depths.

He would have been pulled in, anyways. Tight tree roots would have wrapped around his ankles without telling him, not pulling harsly until John dared look behind him, down into the deep shadows. Then, and only then, would he have fallen. He shouldn’t have wanted to fall, but he did. It had been beautiful, at first.

Being swept up into the skies had been the single greatest experience of his lifetime. The clouds we no longer unreachable, but instead, vast expanses of something to fill the wide blue emptiness. In the very beginning, he hadn’t felt alone in the atmosphere. John had still yet to explore every last crook and cranny of the new world he was surrounded by, and he had no desire to stop any time soon. However, soon enough the blue became simple, and clouds no longer wrapped around his body with winds that he was never quite able to be pulled along with. The sky is only empty when one looks around.

In those moments, he had looked around, and felt his breath hitch as he noticed that he wasn’t with another person, and that this wasn’t how he was always told it had been like. He wasn’t supposed to grow bored of this, he wasn’t supposed to stop feeling that amazing ice through his veins, he wasn’t supposed to be alone up here- so why was he? Why was the world growing colder when scarlets and pinks tinged what had been so perfectly? This wasn’t what he’d wanted. Not at all.

So instead of soaring across the world to avoid the darkness dawning in the dusk, but he felt cold earth beneath his fingers when he reached out. It was that moment, where one is almost awake, but not quite. They can feel their eyes being closed, yet the image before them is so pristine, that they almost don’t believe it. But then they open their eyes, and what follows is no surprise. Instead of staying in the skies that he had been so enthralled in, he was at the bottom of some sort of trench, as though he’d dug his own grave by allowing himself to fly.

He could reach up, yes, but he couldn’t grip anything.

He could see Alexander- of course he could. They went to the park together, they chatted at coffee shops (that Alexander hadn’t been kicked out of for causing fights) and lay on the ratty couch in his apartment. But every time, John reached out, just the slightest bit, so desperate to be pulled out of the abyss only to find- he didn’t. He didn’t find anything. He found nothing but the constellations of the stars in his eyes every time they met Alexander’s.

John’s voice betrayed his thoughts every time Alexander asked for advice. Go hit on that cute guy across the bar- please don’t, there’s someone else that would like to go home with you tonight. Of course you should tell her how you feel- she’ll never love you the way I already do. Why the hell would you say that about Jefferson, of all people- let this be a lie, let this be a cruel sort of joke, if there is any sort of higher power, please. Please don’t let my wind be swept away by burning sunlight.

That’s how Jefferson was always described, anyway. 

Jefferson was the bits of dust that floated in sunlight, catching on one’s desk until it was wiped away. Jefferson was a sunburn after a seemingly sunless day, painful and irritating and so fucking horrible for anyone in their right mind. John had sat through many a rant from Alexander over how Madison somehow tolerated the shitshow known as Thomas Jefferson, despite Madison having been a somewhat okay person. He had sat still and agreed with everything that Alexander said, egging him on to an extent because he’d be a liar if he said that Alex wasn’t gorgeous in a fit of anger. The way his eyes narrowed, focusing that beautiful darkness, how his hair freed itself from its ponytail, framing his face in such a perfect way- it was brilliant.

Jefferson didn’t deserve to see that as often as he did, but John Was well aware that it was a common sight for man that wasn’t even aware of being a rival to him. Alexander most definitely see it, but John did- of course he did. The way Alexander began to smile softly when he mentioned working with Jefferson on a project, or how the man hadn’t interrupted him during a meeting, or how he’d agreed to sign Alexander’s new bill, so long as they did it over a business dinner.

The very idea of such a thing made John scoff- not in front of Alexander, of course. A business dinner was simply a title, an excuse. Alexander didn't know how much Jefferson would want business to fall away into something else. He hadn’t even made a remark at how odd it was when he told John about Jefferson requesting that Alexander call him by his given name during their private dinners. Some nights, Alexander would have John pick him up, and the latter would have to pretend that he didn’t see that small smile, that he couldn’t smell the alcohol on Alex’s breath, that he didn’t know just how much Alexander had fallen for Jefferson. He was confident, however, that Alexander would soon realize that he was not in the skies, just as John had known since so long ago.

That didn’t happen, though.

Instead, Alexander came home to their shared apartment one night with tears in his eyes and small violet hickeys beginning to form on his neck. He spared no detail of how incredible the night had been, how beautiful Thomas -Jefferson, why can’t he just say Jefferson- had been in the candlelight. Everything had been perfectly romantic and incredible and amazing when Thomas had asked Alexander to be his boyfriend-

“Boyfriend? I thought those were just business dinners!” John had said, doing his best to hold back a spot but instead sounding so incredibly stupid- which wasn't far off from how he felt in that moment. Alexander had simply laughed in return and informed John that while it had started out as such a thing, the two men had grown close. They were going to meet up after work on Thursday, go to a nice small coffee shop and the park, and John felt his eyes beginning to sting with tears at the very idea of the two men together.

But he didn’t say anything.

What would he have even said?

 

So he stayed silent. He shut his mouth and twisted into a smile for his dear friend -his dear Alexander- and hugged him tightly, not even bothering to muster up an empty congratulations to the other man.

He found himself in a similar position nearly two years later, after Alexander had moved in with Thomas and ended up mainly talking to John over text and being unable to meet up due to some pre-scheduled thing. Alexander had called him and asked him to come over for lunch the next weekend- Thomas was out of town and would be just the two of them. John hadn’t even hesitated to reply, because why wouldn’t he want to go? Even just a glimpse of Alexander other than his too vivid fantasies might help. He knew that wasn’t really why he was going, but lying to oneself only hurts a single person, so it is hard to remember that it is the worst kind of lie one can tell.

Light had reflected off of Alexander’s hand the moment he opened the door, and John’s heart dropped, and apparently, his thought did too, since all he could manage to say was

“I love you.”

“I always knew. But did you actually think I could ever love you back?”

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like this? Great! You know what I really REALLY like?  
> Comments!


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